


This is the End

by folklores



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-02
Updated: 2011-11-02
Packaged: 2017-10-25 15:36:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/271937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/folklores/pseuds/folklores
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for the EOA5 flash.<br/>Dave, Rose, a rabbit, and a ticking bomb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This is the End

They stand on their poor excuses for quest beds—maybe caskets would be more accurate, all things considered—watching the timer tick down. Even as the Knight of Time, Dave can’t tell whether it’s going by too fast or agonizingly slow. The look on Rose’s face, when he glances out of the corner of his eye at her, says she feels the same way.

“This is it, then,” she says, quietly, fists curled tightly in the fabric of her lilac pants. “We have reached the end of our arduous journey, spanning naught but a day. You still won’t reconsider leaving, I suppose.”

“Nah,” he begins, hidden eyes still focused on her as he listens to the dull, mechanized tick of the countdown. “Why miss the fireworks? You made me work to catch up in the first place, I ain’t missing ‘em now.”

A small, if wry, smile pulls at the corners of her lips before she turns to look at him properly. He does the same, fingers tight around the broken sword that still has a carapace’s blood on it. “Then… Thank you for coming, Dave. I truly do appreciate your company.”

He offers her a small, crooked smile of his own as the ratty, patched up rabbit leans into his shin a little. She’s come far, so very far from her two-bit movie origins and eBay page. If he’d known what awaited her at the end of the road, he would’ve thrown more money at her auction. She at least deserved that much.

“What are brothers for, if not insane suicide missions?”

Rose’s smile wavers at the edges, expression so very anxious and lost, and he knows they are the perfect mirror of each other in that moment. They are only thirteen years old, and some fuckup created a game that forced them to fight tooth and nail, made them lose everything they’d ever known, just to reach this point.

“It means a lot to me,” she says, voice quieter now as the clock reaches forty-five seconds.

Dave doesn’t think, merely reaches his free hand out towards her. She looks at it, briefly, before bringing her own hand up to take his. “It’ll be okay, Rose.”

His own voice wavers, and they both know he’s talking out of his ass again. But instead of calling him on it like she normally would, she inhales shakily, closing her eyes for a moment before she looks at the clock again. Thirty seconds now. “Are you scared?”

As she turns away, so does he, looking at the green numbers. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen… “No,” he lies, so very obviously. She laughs weakly. “You?”

“A bit,” she manages, and her fingers grip his tight as the countdown reaches the final stretch.

Squeezing her hand, he swallows heavily before trying again.

“It’ll be okay,” he repeats, though this time it’s more of a promise that he hopes he can keep as the numbers run out.


End file.
